Dawkins' God

by Robert Hart

(Dawkins' God originally appeared in the March 2008 edition of Touchstone, a Journal of Mere Christianity)

If Richard Dawkins wants to refute what Christians believe, he should not declare his own belief in Divine Transcendence. Time Magazine recently asked him and Francis Collins, a Christian who heads the Human Genome Project, what caused the universe to exist and suggested that the answer could be God.

Dawkins answered: “There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding,” To this Collins responded “That’s God.” Yes, said Dawkins,

but it could be any of a billion Gods . . . the chances of its being a particular God, Yahweh, the God of Jesus, is vanishing small — at least the onus is on you to demonstrate why you think that’s the case. . . . I don’t see the Olympian Gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there’s a God, it’s going to be a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

How is this an argument against the Christian faith? (By the way, what does Dawkins mean by “our present understanding”? Does he anticipate some future state of exaltation and glorification that will increase it?) Furthermore, Dawkins has been a favorite of atheists for a long time, and yet here he clearly professes agnosticism. And, what he is agnostic about is revelation.

In the Bible we read of God who dwells in the darkness and of God hidden by the radiance of blinding light. St. Paul writes of “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see” (I Tim.6:15, 16).

In the first of his Soliloquies, St. Augustine writes of God as “incredibly grand.” The entire tradition of Apophatic theology is about God who is beyond our understanding. God is spoken of in negatives, because we cannot know the Nature that is Wholly other than every created nature, infinite, without beginning or end.

Dawkins believes that “The chances of its [this incomprehensible God] being a particular God . . . is vanishing small.” Yet the Transcendent and incomprehensible God beyond our knowing whose possible existence he concedes is a particular God, and quite in keeping with the one element that he actually brings into question: Have we been given the complement of the Divine mystery, namely, revelation?

Theology is, though the modern mind may find this astonishing, a science. It is based on statements of fact, including miracles. The Christian faith takes its stand on one thing above all, the eyewitness accounts of those who saw the resurrected Christ.

This is strengthened in its status as actual history by the martyrdom of the earliest witnesses. What stands as a unique event in history is not merely an empty tomb, and not the story of the resurrection, but the deep conviction of the earliest Christians that Christ’s post resurrection appearances were events real enough to die for.

This provides for us a fact to consider, namely that what we have, not only a particular God, but specific revelation, is the opposite of “vanishing small.” Instead, it is quite substantive on the basis of evidence.

In terms of this revelation, the post resurrection appearances verify the teachings of Jesus, as recorded by eyewitness accounts, and lead to our central doctrine, the Incarnation. Dawkins fails in his attempt to criticize Christian teaching because he describes the very opposite of what we believe.

“I don’t see the Olympian Gods or Jesus coming down and dying on a cross, as worthy of that grandeur,” he tells the magazine. Here we can sympathize with him, because some theologians have made too much of St. Paul’s use of the Greek word kenoo to mean that Jesus “emptied himself” into human nature.

TAKEN UP IN CHRIST

Never has the Church taught it this way. Always, the revelation has been understood to be that Jesus Christ is God the Word (Logos), or God the Son, having taken finite human nature into His infinite being, time into eternity, mortality into life, created nature into uncreated Person, the known into the unknowable. “God was made man that man might become God,” as St. Athanasius wrote in his On the Incarnation.

Dawkins is right to say that the idea of a knowable and definable god leaping down from Mt. Olympus is not worthy to be compared to this revelation. It is the very opposite. He is wrong to think of Jesus as an Olympian God. He is the very opposite.

Although Dawkins asserts his estimation of the crucifixion of Christ as unworthy of Divine grandeur as a crushing criticism of Christianity, it is simply an echo of St. Paul’s words. “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (I Corinthians 1:22-25).

Unworthy of Divine grandeur indeed; that was the point.

No Bible and without a prayer

Making international news, in June 2006, the Episcopal Church, in General Convention, elected Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, "Bishop" of Nevada to be the new Presiding Bishop, making her their Primate. Beyond the fact that many Anglicans in the official Communion could never accept her as any sort of clergy, including all of the bishops of the largest Church in the Communion (Nigeria), the overt expressions of her post modern brand of liberalism show that the majority of bishops and delegates in the Episcopal Church made their statement by choosing a clear direction for the denomination. Ms. Schori was a very strong supporter of the divorced and openly “gay” Gene Robinson’s election to the epsicopate in New Hampshire; and far from relenting from that stand, she has spent the last two years as Presiding Bishop reasserting her position. Loyal conservative Episcopalians have voiced their sorrow and opposition. It is in the nature of the conservatives of the Episcopal Church to be holding firm against whatever the latest innovation or error happens to be. At this time, the most outspoken organizations within it are making very clear their opposition to acceptance of what we must call Homosexualism, which means an acceptance of what some call the “gay life style.”

The problems in that particular denomination have a long history, much of which I lived through from my baptism in 1958 until my departure in 1997. It is not apathy that has placed its further decline beyond my immediate concern, but rather faith in the law of gravity. Not only must things that are in free fall complete their journey, but each stage in the descent is obvious and predictable. (this is not simply a criticism of people who, in their misguided optimism, really believe they must hold firm under such circumstances, but rather a belief that if they remain in such a denomination they may be endangering their own souls and the souls of their children. Any suffering that they go through is due to a decision, and one can have only so much sympathy for a man who, having long ago reached the age of reason, is nonetheless surprised that banging his head against a stone wall results in pain, and that it does not move the wall).

As dramatic an example of apostasy as the Episcopal Church tends to be, its sordid behavior is not exclusive property. They have no monopoly on errant innovations. Although similar kinds of problems seem to exist solely in the mainline Protestant denominations, it is very dangerous for any church body to feel secure to the point where they can ignore the history of which I speak. Rarely does a week go by without a report about various American or European Roman Catholics who set themselves against the teaching of Rome. In addition we often read reports about attacks on the faith of Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and others that come from within their own denominations, often from the highest levels. For this reason, it is worth the time to look at a documented history of major events in the Episcopal Church over the last few decades, the whole time considering lessons that apply elsewhere. For the major problem that we shall diagnose is a threat that spills over into many other ecclesiastical venues, including non-denominational Evangelicalism as well as American parishes in the Catholic Church. The major flaw has been one that seems innocent, and that is practiced by many well-meaning and sincere Christians, especially when they try to reach out in evangelistic endeavors. That flaw, that deadly virus, is contrived relevance that accommodates and changes established traditions. In extreme cases it changes the substance; but it is nearly always perceived to be an adjustment in terminology and methods of communication with the decidedly meritorious intention to make the Christian message come across to a new generation. The result, however, is that all too often the message itself becomes subjected to an unforeseen transformation, with a corresponding effect on liturgy and translations of the Bible. Changing the traditions, including the traditional use of language, may appear to make the message more relevant. But, the cost needs to be weighed.

In the case with which I am most familiar, the one that I have lived through, we began to be subjected overtly to new ideas and changes in the once very conservative and traditional Episcopal Church, in the early 1970s. This was preceded by instances of apostasy, such as the strange life (and death) and heretical teachings of Bishop James Pike of the Diocese of San Francisco, and by earlier ideas that had been floated by such writers as the Church of England’s James Robinson, author of Honest to God. For people who paid attention to affairs in the realm of theology, the critique of C.S. Lewis already rang true, namely that the modern man suffered from the opposite problem of the Medieval man, concerning the Church. Lewis observed in the 1940s, that whereas the Medieval man believed that the clergy were more orthodox than most of the laity, the modern man believes the clergy are less orthodox. The Episcopal Church had within it people who had been pushing apostasy for several years, but for the average layman the problems were off in a corner out of sight, until about 1970. That year I was only twelve years old, and was directly exposed to contrived relevance for the first time at a church camp.

Every year on the last night of the church camp, held in Maryland at the Claggett Diocesan Center, we would have the service of Holy Communion. That year a middle aged priest emerged “vested” in a colorfully painted t-shirt and blue jeans, and wearing a stole that had every color of the rainbow (only a stole that is clearly distinguishable as white or red or green or violet has any meaning. Mixtures that seem to mean everything, consequently mean nothing). The opening “hymn” was George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” from the Beatles album “Abbey Road.” The intention was obvious; the priest was trying to make the service relevant to young people. The Beatles song was followed by Cranmer’s wording from the only Prayer Book we had, as the colorfully t-shirted priest turned around to the altar (for they still required a turn round to the East back then). “Almighty God, unto Whom all hearts are opened, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid…” The service had been made relevant, but not by the Beatles song, not by the “hippie” t-shirt and flashy stole, or any other remarkable distraction. For the service was relevant in its structure and meaning long before we had been born. And, its meaning and relevance were not destroyed by the comic exhibition of the well-meaning priest, though he most certainly created obstacles which failed to impress our young minds.

Now, as innocent as this may have been, it was symptomatic of the troubles that soon followed, and that have led to the most recent and extreme consequences of “gay friendly” General Conventions of 2000, 2003 and now of 2006. The assumption, back then in 1970, shared by hundreds of priests and bishops who very probably wanted to do the right thing and reach more people, was that something had to be done, a new course taken to change how the Church is perceived, and to improve the experience of those in the pews. It was meant to aid their understanding. The “Green Book” titled Services for Trial Use was sent to the congregations. It contained new liturgies that anticipated those that would appear later in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The assumption was that the Church needed to change if it was to survive. It needed to change if it was to reach a new generation and so be relevant. This was not done with the obvious intention of leading the Church to a time when “same sex unions” would have a formal liturgy with the approval of the Diocesan Ordinary. The perceived need to change the Church was in order to help people enter it, and to help make its message understandable to the young. And, at the time that the "Green Book" and the "Zebra Book" appeared in the pews of the Episcopal Church throughout America, several new versions of the Bible came out in trendy modern English, such as Good News for Modern Man, and (the most pathetic and unfortunately popular version of that time), The Living Bible.

The Charismatic Movement

The 1970s was a time in which people were seeking the reality of spiritual experience, and in mainstream Christianity this need was met by the Charismatic Movement, a very strong revivalist movement that had begun in the previous decade to enter the mainstream Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church, due to the ministry of a Dutch South African Pentecostal preacher named David du Plessis, called by the nickname “Mr. Pentecost.” In the Episcopal Church the early leaders of the movement included priests such as Dennis Bennett, Phillip Zampino, John Howe and others. By far, the most important teaching voice of national significance was Everett L. “Terry” Fullam. The Charismatic movement was a more sophisticated form of Pentecostalism. If George Gershwin dressed up Jazz and took it into the concert hall, Mr. du Plessis dressed up Pentecostalism and took it into the finest churches.

It is very often the case that writers present a picture of the movement so inaccurate that it cannot even be called a caricature. The average tongue-speaking Charismatic was not overcome by emotion to the point where he lost self-control like some ancient Montanist. He would turn his Glossoalia off and on at will (after the first experience). Many of them were among the most educated and financially successful, unlike the early Pentecostals. Furthermore, the notion that the movement was obviously un-theological is, at best, questionable. The whole movement was based on a theological proposition, namely that the gifts of the Holy Spirit had not died out in the Church, a proposition that made the movement attractive to Episcopalians and Roman Catholics whose belief in the sacrament of Confirmation already contained this same theological principle. The difference was that the Charismatics treated these gifts only as experience rather than recognizing their connection to the sacrament in any but the vaguest way. For, as much as this theological principle was at the heart of the movement, so was personal religious experience, almost to the complete exclusion of any disciplined learning.

Nonetheless, the movement abounded in teaching ministries, so much so that most of its events were centered on hearing a speaker who, far more often than not, was billed as a teacher. Healers were around, and so were a few important figures who “testified” about their conversion, and their “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” Mostly, however, people attended events to hear a teacher. Furthermore, the movement spawned an industry of recording and selling cassette tapes of just about everything these teachers had to say. To characterize the movement as non-theological is simply misleading. Nonetheless, even with theology for the common man being pumped out in accessible, often trendy, vernacular, the movement had no real theological center, and the teaching ministries were self-styled, possessing a celebrity quality. The idea of formal study was often rejected by people, but perhaps for a very subtle reason all too easy to miss. After Charismatics had heard hours and hours of teaching from all sorts of ministers of just about every church tradition in the West, it was far too easy for each of them to think himself an adequate theologian. Much of the Biblical teaching was influenced by the jargon and trends of popular psychology. The movement had a large share of contrived relevance, very innocent and well-intended, and these quasi-celebrity teachers were sometimes especially culpable.

This popular round of teaching crossed every denominational boundary, so that a kind of ecumenism emerged that was at once sophisticated and terribly vague. The people were sophisticated in their spiritual experience as Charismatics, knowing how to come together across religious lines for a shared experience of worship, singing “in the Spirit”, and the utterances of prophecy. The largest of these events was at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City in July 1977, where the two churches represented by the largest numbers were the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. With them were Lutherans, non-denominational Evangelicals, Pentecostals of every stripe, and, of course, Episcopalians. But, the movement was vague about many important theological and moral issues. The kind of ecumenism that the Charismatic movement engendered was based upon trying very hard to ignore doctrinal conflicts. The result was that important convictions about the truth were glossed over in a superficial way. The conclusions and deepest convictions of various church bodies were treated as an embarrassment, tolerated without comment.

In some places communities were set up among people who were not joined ecclesiastically, such as the Lamb of God Community in Catonsville, Maryland, where many non-denominational Evangelicals tried to form a “community” with Roman Catholics and a local Reformed Episcopal Church (not to be confused with the Episcopal Church). It was not always clear to the people just who possessed authority, the Bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, or the lay leaders of this “community.” Such an indifference to people’s devotion and convictions was all too common in the movement. Among Episcopalians, the clergy often faced a congregation mixed with genuine Anglicans but also with many self-appointed apostles who came to convert their Parish into something new and different. Assertion of duly appointed authority could be met with the utterance of “prophecy.” A Rector’s parishioners were influenced by many sources, from traditional Anglican thinkers to outright heretics and conmen on the Televangelist circuit. The good elements of the movement were easily compromised, as a very unprincipled form of ecumenism, all too often, undermined theology, and with it, morality. The Charismatic movement was riddled with all these problems. The good that it did in the lives of people whose faith in Christ was awakened by the grace of God, should never be forgotten. But, we benefit by learning lessons from the defects of the movement.

Among Episcopalians, the Charismatics were the leaders of the Pro-Life movement throughout the 1980s, specifically Rev. John Howe when he was Rector of Truro Church in Virginia (now Rt. Rev. John Howe Bishop of Central Florida), as the leader of N.O.E.L. (the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life). This was one of the best features of the movement, a case where it stood for truth and morality. On other fronts, the Charismatics were hopelessly compromised on the issue of women’s “ordination.” Despite outspoken opposition by some leaders, such as Fr. Phillip Zampino (later Bishop Zampino of the Charismatic Episcopal Church), among the leaders of the Charismatic movement in the Episcopal Church were prominent women “priests.” The reason is not too difficult to comprehend, as we shall see.

Women priests to blessed sodomy

In 1976 the hitherto illegal “ordination” of women was approved in General Convention in Minneapolis by simple majority vote. The effects were many, including the departure of many Episcopalians to the Continuing Church (along with members and clergy of the Anglican Church of Canada). In 1977 The Affirmation of Saint Louis was composed and accepted as a constitution for the Continuing Church. At first, as the Affirmation states, they tried to remain in communion with Canterbury and to continue to be Episcopalians and Anglicans (that second name signifying at that time the representatives of the Canadian Church who were present). By February 1978, it was clear that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggins, would not recognize the “Continuing” Anglicans as part of the Communion, but this did not prevent four priests from being consecrated to the episcopate.

Others who rejected women's "ordination" remained in the Episcopal Church, and protested with apologetics. Eventually they formed “Forward in Faith U.S.A.” (a sister organization of “Forward in Faith United Kingdom”), after going through various different stages with the “Evangelical and Catholic Mission” and then the “Episcopal Synod.” By sticking to a principled rejection of women’s “ordination” they were very much alone. Other conservatives formed “Episcopalians United” and similar efforts, because they were willing to accept the “ordination” of women, and did not see it as part of the overall problem of accommodation and contrived relevance.

The “ordination” of women deserves to be rejected on theological grounds, and on practical grounds as well. Nonetheless, its appeal takes us back to the issue of contrived relevance, where the spirit of the times requires not genuine equality of person, but sameness of function . This kind of egalitarianism is about trying to overcome limitations in the nature of both men and women, not about recognizing complemetary strengths. Ordination is a sacrament in the Anglican tradition, not simply a ceremony that bestows a license for a certain kind of work. So too is marriage. If the sex of a person has no sacramental meaning at the altar, then logic must take us from ordination to marriage. The approval of the Blessing of same sex unions (General Conventions of 2000 and 2003) has never required any sort of argument or new kind of reasoning. Neither has it required a new vocabulary. It has required nothing more than a strange combination: Prophetic claims borrowing the use of Biblical terminology from Charismatics, and a reassertion with that vocabulary of every argument previously made in favor of women’s “ordination.’

Many years after the dramatic sweeping of charismata through the mainline churches, the “liberals” in the Episcopal Church are using a quasi-Biblical vocabulary that was quite popular within the Charismatic movement. Charismatics often spoke about the leading of the Holy Spirit, and about how God had told them that he would do a new thing. These phrases, easily borrowed from Scripture without any context to provide a solid foundation, not rooted in Tradition or Right Reason, have been learned well by the innovators of everything from women’s “ordination” to the libertine promotion of sexual immorality, including the greatest current bone of contention for conservatives, Homosexualism. In 2003, after the General Convention had made news with its election of the divorced and openly “gay” Gene Robinson as a bishop, the bishops and delegates who had voted in favor of this event, along with other supporters, presumed the role of prophets by asserting that the Holy Spirit had led them to do this deed. God had done “a new thing,” and the innovators were “led by the Spirit,” and it all sounded much too familiar.

The “liberalism” of the leaders of the Episcopal Church has become very overt and obvious to the average layman, as it was not in the late 60s and 1970. In those days, when it was easy to ignore, honest evangelistic motivation created a place of innocence in which the most contrived kind of relevance flourished for what seemed to be only the best of reasons. Later, when women were “ordained” a certain amount of that innocence remained, making it possible for many Charismatics and Evangelicals to accept the new lady clergy in all sincerity, and to castigate traditionalists for being divisive. Even now, when these same innocent and sincere people are the nucleus of conservative Episcopalianism, trying to restore their church to some earlier condition, they truly believe that they can accept women’s “ordination” as they try to overcome Homosexualism, not considering that to argue against one, they argue against the other; if they accept one they accept the other. These are not two issues but one; and the apparent innocence in all of the contrived relevance of which I have written, was hiding a real agenda.

New Bibles and liturgies

These days, the Episcopal Church uses the 1979 Prayer Book, and reads its lessons mostly from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. When the Episcopal Church introduced a new Prayer Book in 1979, their tradition of English Prayer came to an end. No longer was the Prayer Book a simplified Regula by which the Anglican faithful were called to live, but simply a book of public services. Most of the services were not revised editions of the Book of Common Prayer, with a powerful and majestic language rooted in the entire Christian Tradition, drawn from the scriptures according to the understanding of the saints of past ages. These new services were contrived to be relevant in their use of modern idioms and words. And, the Psalter was translated into the most (for the time) politically correct language. As Dr. Peter Toon pointed out, speaking near Baltimore in or around 1988, with the use of the mis-translated Psalms “there can be no revival; because this is not the word of the Lord.” He pointed out that the first error was in Psalm 1, where “the Man” was now “they who.” The Man, as the Fathers of the Church taught, was Jesus Christ. But, the Man was thrown out in favor of "Gender Inclusive Language,"1 and replaced with the ever banal plural, “they” for an individual of either sex (often used despite the fact that it is grammatically wrong).

The 1982 Hymnal would prove to be every bit as bad, in one modern hymn rewording the Lord’s own promise from the sixth chapter of John: “I will raise him up on the last day.” The classical use of language meant that the Lord’s promise was that the individual who truly believes and partakes of the food of eternal life is given this promise. The “Gender Inclusive” version, “I will raise them up on the Last day” gives no promise to the individual of faith about his own soul- or even about her own soul as the case may be. It speaks of a collective, and just how many of “them” will be raised cannot be known. As for the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, it is riddled with this same political correctness. Near the end of his little book, the Old Testament prophet Malachi said that the new Elijah would “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.” But, the NRSV mis-translates the word “fathers” as “parents.” It does many other such things throughout (in fact the first mistake is in combining the first two verses of Genesis into one sentence, making it seem as if the world may have existed before God’s creation. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form…” The Hebrew simply does not justify this “translation.” The first two sentences are not joined in the original. The older “And, the earth was without form and void...” is literally correct, and it cannot be used to suggest Pantheism).

The English language when translated into the dialect of contrived relevance, with extremely modern usage, cannot be used for the Bible or for liturgy. The effort to make it a language for prayer and scripture is futile at best, and unavoidably deceptive in its effect. Political correctness, Feminism, and "Gender Inclusive Language" combine into a tongue that defies interpretation. As Gandalf was hesitant to speak the language of Mordor in Rivendell, no one can proclaim the word of the Lord in Extreme Modern English. Saint Paul could speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but this seems more like a tongue of demons; it has no word for caritas. All Christians everywhere do well to take warning from the example of the Church into which I was born, in which I was raised from the cradle. Do not try to pray in this tongue, and do not try to translate the word of God into such a dark and imprisoned language. For it distorts truth and destroys beauty, muddles all true communication, and twists everything into a lie. It has no word for caritas, because it has no usage of “Father” as the One Who defines love by everything that He is.

The scriptures are very old, and to learn them requires that we submit to rigorous study, and that we make ourselves flexible enough to adjust to very ancient ways of thinking. Saint Jerome wrote about his time in the desert: “The flesh I might try to break with frequent fasting: but my mind was seething with imagination: so to tame it, I gave myself up for training to one of the brethren, a Hebrew who had come to the faith. And, so after the subtlety of Quintilian, the flowing of Cicero, the gravity of Fronto and the gentleness of Pliny, I began to learn another alphabet, and meditate on words that hissed and words that gasped.” As it was in ancient times, so it ever shall be, that the gift of the Holy Scriptures has been preserved by learning tongues of old, from before the times of our fathers. We possess numerous translations, words that cannot exactly haunt us because they are always fresh and alive, though coming from generations long fallen asleep in the dust of the earth.

The discipline used when translating the King James Bible, for example, flowed naturally from the reverence for God that had motivated Christians of earlier generations to choose words carefully. “Translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised.” The first part we understand, but the second requires effort to learn. In other words, the translators were quite able to correct any mistaken notions, because they knew Hebrew and Greek. But, they did not take it upon themselves to disregard former translations, which involved a careful handling of the Bible with respect for a whole tradition of understanding its meaning. Where they felt compelled to make changes, it was never arbitrary. But, modern translations, to the extent that many of them can rightly be called translations, too often enter the most dangerous ground of contrived relevance. If there is one place above all where we must turn the issue of relevance around, and learn again to apply discipline to our minds so that they become relevant to Another’s instruction, it is in hearing the word of the Lord. And, if there is one place where our words must be thoughtfully chosen and based upon revealed truth, it is in bearing our souls before the throne of the Almighty as we pray.

To translate the first commandment literally, we are forbidden to have other gods in the Lord’s presence- that is before His face (al-Peni). The only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, along with the other Comforter, are revealed in the Name spoken by the risen Christ: The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the Name into which we are baptized. But, this Name is regarded as offensive to the speakers of Extreme Modern English, and in the name of contrived relevance we are bidden not to utter the revealed Name. Early on I said “changing the traditions, including the traditional use of language, may appear to make the message more relevant. But, the cost needs to be weighed.” Here we see that the cost is that of knowing God as He is revealed. Which means the cost of contrived relevance is life eternal (John 17:3), a cost that we must decline to pay.

Conclusion

The history of the Episcopalian apostasy could fill many pages, and we could write thousands of pages about Pikes and Spongs and other dangerous implements. But, the real tragedy is not that the revisionists with an agenda should have been stopped, but rather that at one time they might have been. The road to Hell was paved with the good intentions of sincere clergy and other well-meaning “spiritual” people who wanted very badly to present the message of Christ in a way made relevant to their time. In the process they allowed themselves to be manipulated, and to have their own vocabulary appropriated, by forces that were far more aggressive than they, with an agenda far more rigorous than their un-Christlike mildness (it takes steel to turn the money changers tables and to face the cross). The perception that we must find a way to make the word of God relevant, and to make the liturgy meaningful, is flawed to begin with, since a faithful Church cannot fail to be relevant and meaningful. Beware the urge to become relevant, to adapt to the fallen world. Let the modern Episcopal Church serve as an example and take warning.

1. By "gender" they mean sex, a misuse of language we have addressed before.

Councils, Scripture and Catholic Faith

Article XXI. Of the authority of General Councils.ENERAL Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.

This Article has been used as ammunition by Polemicists who think that it provides the "aha!" factor. They have decided that it proves that Anglicanism is built on a false foundation, because these C of E Reformers were obviously rejecting the authority of Ecumenical Councils. And, despite the fact that the See of Rome recognizes the full validity of the holy orders in oriental "Non-Chalcedonian" churches, the aforesaid polemicists derive from their assumption further "proof" of Anglican Absolute Nullity and Utterly Voidness. As much as it may seem desirable, at times, to restore the Elizabethan penalties upon "papists"- strictly for these polemicists (and my mother-in-law), but no one else- it would seem a bit difficult to enforce them. So, I guess we'll just have to use apologetics instead. Oh well.

First of all, it is self-evident that councils are not infallible unless ratified by the Universal Church, something rendered impossible after Nicea II due to the Great Schism between the two "One True Churches." Some councils in the first Millennium finished their work, only to have it either rejected immediately, or accepted only briefly before being finally rejected. These facts of history are well-known, and need no further elaboration. Some councils were considered authoritative in a few regions, but never accepted by the majority of the Church, and so they are not Ecumenical Councils.

Also self-evident is this simple fact: "And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God." Indeed, no Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox has any basis for disagreeing with this. Why, after all, were some councils not received by the Church? What about the Arian Council in 341?

Also self-evident is this fact: "Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture." This is self-evident because the Ecumenical Councils arrived at their conclusions by this very method, examination of holy scripture; and because they received Ecumenical status on this basis also.

VIII. Of the Three Creeds.HE three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius' Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.

Because these Articles invoke the authority of scripture, the polemicists (or self-appointed apologists for Rome- of the sort who seem never to have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church) find what they think is more ammunition against Anglicans, and more proof of just how absolutely null and utterly void we, your clergy, really are. After all, this must prove that our Church is a sola scriptura sect, because we invoke the authority of the same Bible concerning which Rome has said, "these books have God as their Author"1. Of course, when the pope says it, then it's Catholic. When the English Reformers said it, it was Protestant. The significance of this distinction is not by any means self-evident.

The problem with their argument is what I have stated above. The Conciliar method was examination of the contents of Scripture. The method of universal ratification leading to Ecumenical status for a Council was also based on careful examination of scripture. The Holy Catholic Church in the first millennium was far more Berean 2 than our polemicist friends appreciate.

In addition to things that are self-evident, the term sola scriptura was well-known before the Reformation. It came from St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Quia sola canonica scriptura est regula fidei. ("The reason is that only canonical Scripture is a measure of faith"). 3 The English Reformers kept this principle alive, and deduced from it those words known to every traditional Anglican: "Holy Scriptures containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." This is in Article VI. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.

It is true that the Universal Church infallibly interprets scripture, in fact, has infallibly interpreted scripture. This does not mean that the Church gives us a complete commentary verse by verse. It means that whenever interpretations contradict the clear teaching of the Church, those interpretations are to be rejected. A very-very-modern Evangelical concept of sola scriptura, on the other hand, is wrong; that is, subjecting the scriptures to private interpretation. That is because some people do not understand that the Bible is not only the Word of God, but is also the Book of the Church. God wrote these books, so to speak, with human instruments. The scriptures came first through the prophets of Israel and then through the Church of the Apostles. The Church knows what its book means.

The idea expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas is what the English Reformers meant by the words quoted above from Article VI. It is a Protestant concept by the terms of their day and age, which is why it is a Catholic concept. Perhaps defining the words "Catholic" and "Protestant" should be required of anyone who uses them as labels, who paints with them using a large brush.

The Thirty-Nine Articles were established in 1563. What was happening at that time? The Council of Trent was still a matter of "current events" rather than history. Article XXI explained why the Church of England was not participating (that is, from the English perspective), and why no one should be troubled by anything Trent would require of Christians. The Article did not reject "the Church with her authority," to use Richard Hooker's phrase. It taught the people of England that their consciences need not be troubled, nor their beliefs dictated, by any council that could not prove its conclusions from scripture (the degree to which the Council of Trent may or may not be in agreement with scripture is a topic for another day).

XIX. Of the Church.HE visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.

This Article deals with facts of history as well, stating that each of these churches had erred at some point, for example, the Monothelitism professed by the Patriarch of Constantinople in the time of St. Maximus the Confessor. Primarily, the Article refers to the Arian heresy, if only because emperors, especially Valens, forced it on the people, creating a new round of persecution. St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, was forced into exile several times. In fact, the Bishop of Rome was appointed by Arian emperors in those years.

In a fiction novel called Father Elijah, 4 an apostate cardinal has a conversation with the pope. In it the pope tells this errant cardinal that it was the "Petrine Charism" that saved the Church from the Arian heresy. This is fiction within fiction, because the facts do not support it; it is worth mentioning because it is the popular mythology of some Roman Catholics. It was not the Bishop of Rome who saved the Church from the Arian heresy, whether he had "the Petrine Charism"or not. The first Ecumenical Council of Nicea was called by Constantine because he was aware of strife, and wanted to maintain peace; and it was also due to the urging of Archbishop Alexander of Alexandria. The Bishop of Rome did not call the Council, and he was not present at it either. With the other Patriarchs, he did ratify it after it was completed. Later, when Arianism gained the sympathy of emperors, the See of Rome was officially Arian.

Of course, just as with the condemnation of Pope Honorius I for heresy (Monthelitism) at the Third [Ecumenical] Council of Constantinople (680 AD), we are told that this doesn't count as a strike against papal infallibility. Fine. I will not argue that point. I will instead argue that what the Church of England set forth in the Articles does not amount to a rejection of the Faith of the Church, does not invalidate our claim to belong to the Holy Catholic Church, does not render our orders "absolutely null and utterly void," and does not replace Catholic faith with Protestant innovation.

These Articles were written to defend, clarify, and teach the Catholic Faith as all former generations of the Church, and the Fathers of the Church, defended, clarified and taught it.


1. Dominus Iesus
2. Acts 17:10,11
3. Notandum autem, quod cum multi scriberent de catholica veritate, haec est differentia, quia illi, qui scripserunt canonicam Scripturam, sicut Evangelistic et Apostoli, et alii huiusmodi, ita constanter eam asserunt quod nihil dubitandum relinquunt. Et ideo dicit Et scimus quia verum est testimonium eius; Gal. I, 9: Si quis vobis evangelizaverit praeter id quod accepistis, anathema sit. Cuius ratio est, quia sola canonica scriptura est regula fidei. Alii autem sic edisserunt de veritate, quod nolunt sibi credi nisi in his quae ver dicunt. Thomas's commentary on John's Gospel, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis Lectura, ed. P. Raphaelis Cai, O.P., Editio V revisa (Romae: Marietti E ditori Ltd., 1952) n. 2656, p. 488.

"It should be noted that though many might write concerning Catholic truth, there is this difference that those who wrote the canonical Scripture, the Evangelists and Apostles, and the like, so constantly assert it that they leave no room for doubt. That is what he means when he says 'we know his witness is true.' Galatians 1:9, "If anyone preach a gospel to you other than that which you have received, let him be anathema!" The reason is that only canonical Scripture is a measure of faith. Others however so wrote of the truth that they should not be believed save insofar as they say true things." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John 21)

4. Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah, 1996 San Francisco, Ignatius Press

Easter out of Season

THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL January 25th

When the Lord appeared to Saul, and made him an eyewitness of the resurrection, many things changed in his understanding. His righteous act of persecuting the Church was revealed to have been the sin of persecuting the Messiah himself, his own self-attained righteousness was shown to be a delusion, the curse that was evident in the manner of Jesus’ death was revealed to be atonement paid by the Righteous one for the many sinners, thus taking away the curse from those who deserved it, and the prophecies of scripture were revealed to have been speaking of two comings of Messiah, not one. How much of this was clear immediately and how much had to develop over time as he thought about it, is not clear. But, right away, in his conversion, is the revelation that would become Paul’s bold teaching about faith in Jesus Christ and the grace that he gives, himself our only Salvation.

BORN OUT OF DUE TIME

Every winter on January 25th traditional churches celebrate the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. On that day we remember the story recorded in the Book of Acts, the history of how the persecutor of the Church saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ and became a convinced preacher of the Gospel. And, as we remember the conversion of the Apostle, we are presented with a puzzle that requires a little bit of explanation. The traditional calendar contains four colors, one of which applies to every day of the year (sometimes two colors on certain days).

White is the Lord’s color, and it is used as well for saints who are not martyrs. But, for saints who are martyrs the color is red; and Saint Paul is a martyr, for he was beheaded in Rome. The puzzle is that white, not red, is the color for the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. White, the color for the Lord himself, is proper to such times as Christmas, the Annunciation, or Easter. But, the Church long ago decided that white was the appropriate color for this day. If we figure out that puzzle, and meditate on its meaning, we have the answer to the biggest challenge facing the Christian message in our own day and age.

The current challenge to the truth of the Gospel, coming from a school of philosophy that pretends to be a school of science, stretching from Charles Darwin to Richard Dawkins, has to do with an evaluation of what sort of God, God ought to be. The challenge may seem to be an apologetic against Intelligent Design, since that is how it is being presented currently. However, it goes back to the days of Darwin, who considered the world as it is to be less than practical and efficient. The argument has developed along lines of philosophy, particularly of Ethics (part of the larger discipline of Philosophy). It contains criticism of such details as the design, or rather (seeing that it is difficult to come up with a phrase to fit the argument) the shape and form of the human back.

What the argument boils down to is simply this: If the universe were designed, it ought to have been designed better, so as to be more congenial to the people who have to live in it. Therefore, it could not have been designed. This assumes that the critics of God, those who have placed Him in, as C.S. Lewis put it, the dock, are correct about what would be the best way to go about making a world and its creatures. And, assuming their way is the better way, the argument is one of Ethics, that God ought to have made a better world, one that gives more consideration to our needs, and that demonstrates kindness on the Creator’s part. Furthermore, the whole scheme of this Ethics argument depends upon the Christian and Jewish paradigm of goodness. It requires, to summarize the Torah, not doing what is odious to others, as Hillel taught, and doing to others what we would have them do to us, as Jesus Christ taught.

Because this argument is about what kind of God, God ought to be, it is based on conjecture and speculation. Therefore, it places everything in a context that is theoretical, and being theoretical, concerned with logic based upon assumption, or even a kind of reasoning. What if, however, the Christian message is not based on any theory about how the world ought to be, what sort of designer the Creator should have been, or any other concept? What if we should brush aside all that is theoretical and speculative in favor of something evidentiary that is rooted in fact?

The Church’s use of white for the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul points to the answer, summoning to the mind very strong accounts of reported history as contained in the Bible. It points to the testimony of eyewitness, in some cases to the testimony of martyrs. The message does not claim to answer any questions about what the Creator ought to have done, but instead it reveals how he has intervened in human affairs. It is fact based, not logic based. That is, it does not come to us as a result of reasoning through to a conclusion, but of accepting reports of fact. The only use of logic that we may use, in this case, begins with the facts rather than with mere conjecture.

We have been given a set of facts that rightly include both revelation and history. Revelation, because God has acted in such a way that the truth has been made known; and history, because the facts are recorded as eyewitness accounts. Testimony of this type constitutes evidence, and the record of it constitutes history, both of which are far more in the nature of science than of philosophy. The Christian message treats as irrelevant arguments that place God in the dock and judge His existence by the conjecture of a system of Ethics. Instead, it simply states a testimony, that of the eyewitnesses who saw the resurrected Jesus Christ.

From the facts of their testimony we draw logical conclusions about the sort of God that God is, rather than trying to figure out what He should be. So, we come to what may be called “The Gospel according to Paul.” This is in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, vs. 1-11. In this passage he declares to them the Gospel he had preached to them, and urges them to be faithful to it. After reminding them that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose the third day, all in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, Paul gives a list of several eyewitnesses who saw the Risen Christ. All of these witnesses saw Him between the first Easter and the day of His Ascension. That is, except for one. The last witness who saw the resurrected Christ was Saint Paul himself, significantly later than the others.

The last appearance was to Saul on the road to Damascus, the day of the conversion of Saint Paul. The traditional celebration calls for white as the Lord’s color, white for Easter, though it falls in the season of Epiphany (or, as this year, in the Pre-Lenten season). It is Easter out of season, because of Paul’s own words: “And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” (v.8) The Church is teaching us that this day, the day of Paul’s conversion, is about the Risen Christ. And, not simply about Him in a theoretical sense, but in a historical sense. He was seen alive after His death, and the Gospel is not complete without the proclamation that witnesses gave us this testimony, reporting facts rather than trying to figure out answers to philosophical problems.

We are certain that in those facts every philosophical question can finally be answered. But, the Christian message is not that we can figure out what God ought to be like, and then pronounce a verdict either on Him or His existence. The Christian message is the Gospel as preached by eyewitnesses who proclaimed the revelation of God in Christ as historical fact, a testimony that was worth dying for. In this sense, the Christian Gospel is far more a matter of fact and history than it is of philosophy. To those who want to begin with their opinions and speculations, the answer of the Church is that we begin elsewhere; we begin with the facts. This testimony of the eyewitnesses is why, if you enter a traditional church on January 25th, you will see the priest and the altar vested in white.

No Checks and Balances Here

“Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other, what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after this the Church succeedeth that which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatsoever.” (Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 5.VIII.2)

Richard Hooker has been both praised and blamed for creating the “Three-legged Stool.” I am not alone in rejecting this image of three equal legs as the meaning of Hooker’s own argument. But, not a few modern Anglicans have decided that this is the way best to summarize the essence of his teaching about epistemological authority, that is specifically, how we know the truth. As a result of this idea of a Three-legged Stool, some have created a system of checks and balances. Furthermore, they have recast the terms of this in endless and creative fashions, with no fidelity to anything but their whims.

The Three-legged Stool, by correct definition, is “Scripture, Right Reason and Tradition.” These three as sources of knowledge can rightly be said to come from Hooker’s work. However, the word “tradition” was not often used this way by Hooker himself, who used it sometimes in a negative way referring to excesses and distortions associated with the papists of his times. It is, however, quite correct to use the word “Tradition” for the collective mind of the Church, and therefore the mind of Christ (I Cor. 2: 16), and in this way to understand part of Hooker’s meaning in the words, “the Church by her ecclesiastical authority.”

Nonetheless, the problem with the Three-legged Stool is, as I said, that it carries the idea of three equal legs. For Hooker the idea of equality among these three things was simply wrong. The Scriptures have the highest place of authority, for in the Scriptures it is God Himself who speaks, since the word of God is directly revealed there, teaching and setting forth “all things necessary for salvation.” Second, to Hooker, is Reason. In light of the whole of his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity we must add the word “right.” Right Reason (see Books 1.VIII.3, and 3.IX.3), rather than simply reason, is best understood in light of the opening chapters of Book II, where he teaches that wisdom, as it is explained in the Proverbs of Solomon, and mentioned in other passages of the Bible, includes more than simply what is revealed in scripture. It includes knowledge of the natural world, and practical matters of understanding. We can draw from this that a mad man possesses reason, but not Right Reason (the same may be said of an untrustworthy Enthusiast, whose claims to private revelation defy credibility if only on the basis of his apparent instability). We can draw, as well, that Right Reason placed after Scripture, rules out the notion that human reason is equal by its own weight to the Word of God.

That the teaching and authority of the Church comes third tells us that to Hooker, only a mind enlightened by the Word of God and possessing Right Reason responds truly to the teaching and authority of the Church. So he says in Book 3.IX.3:

“Is it a small office to despise the Church of God? ‘My son, keep thy father’s commandment,’ saith Solomon, ‘and forget not thy mother’s instruction: Bind them both always about thine heart.’ It doth not stand with the duty we owe to our heavenly Father, that to the ordinances of our mother the Church we should show ourselves disobedient. Let us not say we keep the commandments of the one, when we break the law of the other: for unless we observe both we obey neither.”

In this way, he upholds not only the teaching of the Church (to which we add the words, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est: “What has been believed everywhere, always, and by all”), but also, what he calls “her ecclesiastical authority,” not to be redundant, but to extend the meaning to include Government and Canon Law.

False notions

The first mistake concerning the Three-legged Stool is conveyed by the image itself. Hooker taught a hierarchy of authority with Scripture at the highest place, Right Reason as second because it is necessary that the word of God communicate to human minds, and what we call Tradition, but that he called the Church, as the third. (Yes, Hooker meant as well to include the Church’s Government and Canon Law, but for purposes of Epistemology these need to be placed on the back burner.) However, not everyone means to imply equality when using the phrase “Three-legged Stool.” Here the weakness of analogies as a method can meet with innocence. But, the image tends to convey equality nonetheless. Better we should think of a small ladder with three rungs. The revelation of Holy Scripture is the highest rung. This is essential and absolutely necessary to understand because of the deceptive ways in which this idea of three sources of authority is misused. It is misused every time that it is applied as a system of checks and balances.

When used this way it is a method for any party that wants to eliminate from authority the disfavored commandments of God. They find that the Scriptures are against their innovation. So, they pretend that the Scriptures can be weighed either against Tradition or Reason. Furthermore, because Tradition cannot be used as easily as Scripture itself- by misapplication and sophistry of “interpretation”- they replace Tradition with Experience, pretending that these two mean the same thing. The result is a new “Three-legged Stool” of Scripture, Reason and Experience, always put forth as “the historic understanding of comprehensiveness in Anglicanism.” But, in fact, it is nothing but a new invention of dishonest minds relying on the credulity of the uneducated. It is sophistry, not wisdom; a sales-pitch, not teaching; politics, not doctrine. It is a wide gate and a broad path that leads to destruction.

By this means, every teaching of Scripture can be ruled out, whether it is the fact that a bishop must be the husband of one wife rather than simply the spouse of one spouse, or that only when a man cleaves to his wife are the two made one flesh. By claiming that “reason” or “experience” teach things contrary to Scripture, and that these two “legs” must be weighed against that one “leg,” they manage to overthrow all true teaching whenever it stands in the way of Satanic progress.

The older perpsective

It was relayed to me that a popular blog (weak in theology and content) contained an article in which one of their writers claimed that she did not worry about the Anglican Catechism having always taught that two of the sacraments are “generally necessary for salvation,” because for her the scriptures were good enough. What she really meant was not the scriptures, but her very limited understanding of the scriptures. Then she said that for Anglo-Catholics the scriptures are not enough: “They need something from tradition too.” This is not a “liberal” speaking, but rather a sort of theological “new conservative” whose foundation is every bit as innovative as that of the revisionists. She decides for herself what is and is not “a salvation issue” with absolutely no regard for the Anglican heritage she claims as her own. This is also a misuse of the Three-legged Stool as a system of checks and balances.

The Catholic mind of a Traditional Anglican does the opposite of what this writer said. For us the tradition is not enough; we must also be persuaded by Scripture. But, this is in response to what the writer meant when she used the word “tradition.” She thinks of the tradition in strictly superficial terms. For such people, the tradition is only as old as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and the 1940 Hymnal, the pattern of church buildings and other practical matters to do with how we carry out the Form in which we worship God together. But these things are not the Tradition, even though they are traditional.

When we really understand it is sufficient to say, simply, the Tradition. However, for the sake of clarity and communication, it is not always possible to speak this way to everyone. The Tradition always refers to teaching; it is a purely doctrinal Tradition. As such it safeguards the validity of the Sacraments, and in fact cannot continue without them, nor they without it. Properly understood, even the three things put forth by Hooker are within the Tradition. The Scriptures, Right Reason and the Church-with-her-Authority live inside this Tradition, that is, the teaching carried on along with the Apostolic Succession from age to age. Our liturgical life has taken useful forms due to the wisdom of Right Reason that helped the Church to form them in the earliest years, and that has from time to time and place to place given variety in details according to the needs of the people. But, always, within the Tradition, it is the same Gospel, the same Sacraments, and the same Teaching commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ, quickened and empowered by the same Holy Spirit, taking us into the presence of God the Father. In a sense, speaking of the Scriptures and the Tradition as two separate things is itself a mistake. The Scriptures are part of the Tradition, and these speak not with voices that must be weighed against each other in the scales. These speak to us with the one voice of God. And, as wisdom teaches, they cannot contradict or vary.

Non-Anglican Difficulties, Part Three

The following came from my answers in private correspondence. It struck me as I had completed it, that parts of it may be useful. The identity of the person to whom I wrote is confidential. The first answer is not to a Non-Anglican difficulty, just a modern one.

About contraception: The fathers were not silent. What they wrote condemns it as sin. I do understand your circumstances very well, because we have four (now grown) children, and at times my one and only source of family income seemed to be no better than desperate poverty. My health was not good, and I came close to death more than once. The last time that happened my wife was pregnant with number four. Someone did bring her to the hospital that night, assuming I might die before they arrived. That was, in fact, exactly nineteen years ago this very day (the feast of the Holy Innocents).

...my answer cannot help but seem superficial. But, it is not really superficial at all. It is that you allow this one matter to help you develop something in addition to faith, namely trust. Whatever God has planned for your family, it is not to destroy you or hurt you. It is not adverse to your well being.

These answer Non-Anglican difficulties:

About Anglican orders: ...The question deals with apologetics, that is, a defensive argument. Argument is not a bad word, and should normally take place between "learned friends." I repeated an outline of very basic arguments in order to inform you. This is a subject that is difficult to put into a few words in an e-mail perhaps, and so I overloaded each sentence with information. This is because I keep this information in my head. If you look at the 2006 archives of the Continuum, you will discover a wealth of information that refutes Apostolicae Curae. I recommend as well that you read Saepius Officio (1897), which was superior in scholarship to the 1896 Papal Bull it refuted. ...the See of Rome is stuck with every document bearing Papal Imprimatur as a precedent. But, the good news is you can ...receive Communion in good conscience from an Anglican priest if you study the Anglican answers.

About the Sacrifice of the Mass: the only thing rejected by the Church of England was the plural, "sacrifices of masses." Written in the 16th century, the relevant Article was addressing the flawed understanding of the people, not the theologians in Rome. In modern times, the Church of Rome sees that the Church of England was right to reject "the sacrifices of masses." There is only one sacrifice, and only one Mass, no matter how often it is celebrated. The Book of Common Prayer draws from the Epistle to the Hebrews and produces this line in the Canon of Consecration:

"ALL glory be to thee, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for that thou, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world."

Reading through the entire Prayer, the language of sacrifice is clearly present. It is repeated in many ways, so as to include the whole of life, to summarize everything that is offered to God. If not in the Mass, where could we summarize the whole of our lives as an offering to God, in response to His gift of His Son? This includes praise and thanksgiving. It includes the bread and wine on the altar, so that they may be for us the Body and Blood of Christ. It includes as well our bodies as living sacrifices and our reasonable service of prayer (Rom. 12:1,2).

Excerpts from the BCP, Holy Communion:

"we, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before thy Divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make..."

"And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee..."

"And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice; yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord..."

That last line is not to be understood as "bounden duty and service" instead of sacrifice; but, in the context of the Prayer, it is an expanded way of saying "sacrifice." We are not worthy to make any sacrifice, but accept this duty and service- i.e. sacrifice- through Jesus Christ who gave himself once for all.

About the Real Presence: Lex Orandi Lex Credendi. See these words of orandi, and so be helped to understand what is actually credo for us:

"AND we most humbly beseech thee, O merciful Father, to hear us; and, of thy almighty goodness, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify, with thy Word and Holy Spirit, these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine; that we, receiving them according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood."

"Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us"

"THE Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life...THE Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life."

"ALMIGHTY and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ."

My point is simple. Despite the theories of various writers, including some Anglicans, the actual Holy Communion service is the Catholic Mass of the Apostolic Church with no gaps in the theology it expresses. This is why the Patriarch of Alexandria wrote these words to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1930, delivered on Christmas day:

"The Holy Synod recognizes that the declarations of the Orthodox, quoted in the Summary, were made according to the spirit of Orthodox teaching. Inasmuch as the Lambeth Conference approved the declarations of the Anglican Bishops as a genuine account [1] of the teaching and practice of the Church of England and the Churches in communion with it, it welcomes them as a notable step towards the Union of the two Churches. And since in these declarations, which were endorsed by the Lambeth Conference, complete and satisfying assurance is found as to the Apostolic Succession, as to a real reception of the Lord’s Body and blood, as to the Eucharist being thusia hilasterios [2] (Sacrifice), and as to Ordination being a Mystery, the Church of Alexandria withdraws its precautionary negative to the acceptance of the validity of Anglican Ordinations, and, adhering to the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, of July 28, 1922, pronounces that if priests, ordained by Anglican Bishops, accede to Orthodoxy, they should not be re-ordained, as persons baptized by Anglicans are not rebaptized."

About the 16th century: It is true that during the days of Henry VIII iconoclasm was caused by the fanatical excesses launched by Thomas Cromwell. The people were mostly outraged by this blasphemy. Of course, later the the Church of England was reunited with the Pope. A second break with the See of Rome was caused by the Pope himself. Eager to please the king of Spain, he demanded that Elisabeth be overthrown and put to death, and that the faithful of England plunge themselves into Civil War. The new queen had not split with Rome at that time; but, she was the daughter of Ann Boleyn, and so the king of Spain wanted to use this to claim that her rule was illegal, and he wanted to conquer England. This second split was not like the the earlier one that had been caused by Henry VIII's desire to have a divorce. It was caused by a pope who aligned himself with the empire of Spain, and who made impossible demands for bloodshed, and surrender of a whole country to a foreign power. The iconoclasm of Thomas Cromwell never resurfaced except among the heretical Puritans, a group that was considered to be a threat to the Church of England from its outset (even though some people pretend that the Puritans were Anglicans).

So, I would not allow the iconoclasm that had once taken place to cast a shadow over Anglican validity.

You wrote: "Purgatory, excessive devotion to the saints with
novenas, heavy heavy heavy emphasis on works sometimes
at the expense of faith, Mariology taken too far,
indulgences, and a lack of Biblical study have all
concerned me about Roman Catholicism."

Some of these things are simply popular expressions of devotion [which are perfectly good], and some Anglo-Catholics are identical in their practices. The only theological problem that I see in the teaching of Rome, among the items you listed, is the combination of Purgatory with indulgences. It is still taught in the (otherwise excellent) Catechism of the Catholic Church that was produced under Pope John Paul II. If Purgatory is a punishment instead of purification, and if indulgences are granted on the basis that God owes mankind credit to its account due to supererogation of the saints, what happens to this clear teaching of scripture? "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Rom. 5:19, 20)." I say, this point of official Roman Catholic teaching is incompatible with the Word of God, and refutes essential truth of the Gospel. It is, also, a point in which the new catechism is self-contradictory, because it affirms those same essential points of the Gospel earlier on, that this section denies. There's that problem of being stuck with every precedent again. They should, rather, just drop the Medieval innovation.

About Papal Infallibility: Like the above Medieval innovation, this modern innovation (1870) is not part of "the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3)." It is not in accord with the Vincentian Canon: "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est (What has been believed everywhere, always, and by all)." Conciliar authority was the rule for a thousand years, and no pope [needed to be] present at any of the seven Ecumenical Councils, having sent representatives, and having awaited the written documents to either ratify or reject (with no more or less authority than the other Patriarchs).
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On that last question of Papal Infallibility, the subject is more complicated than most people realize. Fr. John Hunwicke, a priest in the Church of England, wrote an article that helps to clarify its meaning. You can read what he has written here.

"Nobody gives a ..."

A good reason why we are Continuing Anglicans.

In a recent exchange, a conservative Episcopalian who considers Women's "Ordination" to be unimportant, made the following comment to a reader of The Continuum:

"There is, likewise, a reason there are no sites with comparable readership [to Stand Firm] that focus primarily on the matter of women's ordination: NOBODY GIVES A S... "
Greg Griffith of Stand Firm in Faith

(expletive, as in profanity, deleted by me.1)

This statement is worth thinking about. How can anyone fail to consider that the Episcopal Church lost more than a third of its entire membership in the late 1970s and early 1980s due wholly to this one innovation of women's "ordination?" And, why is it that all of us in the Continuing Churches have been dismissed by this high profile individual with the word "Nobody?" If "nobody gives a ...", then I take it that all of us are nobody.

Why do conservative Episcopalians imagine that the issue of women's "ordination" has not been a cause of major concern? The answer is that people enclose themselves in circles where mutual affirmation of a position, be it fact, theory or delusion, takes the place of proof and lends undue confidence. Among conservative Episcopalians it has become a cornerstone and sure foundation of faith that women's "ordination" does not really matter very much, even if it its opponents might be correct. It is, in their estimation, a secondary issue. What matters, in fact all that matters, is that the Anglican Communion is being torn apart by the issue of "Gay" bishops and Same Sex Blessing.

Yet, even among these conservative Episcopalians who cannot understand the importance of correcting the Women's "Ordination" heresy, one wonders why it is the issue of Same Sex that creates an emergency. With marriage having been relegated into a place of insignificance by no less than the examples of several bishops leaving their wives to marry other women, with liberalism about abortion, with essential doctrines such as the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, the Trinity, the Resurrection of Christ, the authority of scripture as the inspired Word of God as received and taught by the Church, all thrown on the ash heap and treated as merely optional, why do they finally wake up over this one issue? The homosex issue of the Episcopal Church is not the first issue in the heresy line. It has come at the end. And, those who have awakened only now are not in a position to demand credibility as spiritual, wise or orthodox people. They are not orthodox, even if comparably orthodox against someone even worse. They have tolerated every heresy that has led to this homosex crisis, and have exposed their own children to the evils and infidelity of the Episcopal Church for decades. Now, one prominent person of their number has spoken truly, but only about his own tolerant fellow conservative EUCUSAns, "nobody gives a ..." Yes, and that has been their problem all along. We are not impressed.

I quote myself from Touchstone, A Journal of Mere Christianity:

" After all, what the homosexualists have been able to do is to base their arguments upon a foundation already laid for them. That foundation has included relaxation of the moral laws about sexual behavior. It has also included the confusion of sex roles ever since women were first “ordained” in the Episcopal Church. The conservatives have accepted these things, but hope now to credibly and effectively oppose the homosexualist cause. This cannot be done."

Besides, as our brother Ed Pacht has pointed out, this is not about orthodoxy, but about "the Yuk factor." They can live with denial of the major doctrines of the Faith, and with acceptance of immorality and notorious clergy. But, homosexuals are gross. On that they draw the line. Gee, how orthodox.

Also, how much of this is a revulsion to homosex, and how much is a revulsion to the solution it requires of many individuals, namely, celibacy? The worship of the creature over the Creator is where the path begins to that damned state of being "given over," as St. Paul warns in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Same Sex attraction that is acted upon is only the last step there. It begins with worshiping the creature of sex instead of the Creator. But, what causes conservative Episcopalians to get upset is this above all: That anyone could be a celibate.

1. Is there any site that focuses primarily on women's "ordination?" I think not. Nonetheless, both The Christian Challenge and New Directions, each of them respectively, have more readers than Mr. Griffith's site.